French lawmakers vote to ban full face veils in public

Muslim women could be fined for wearing full face veils in public in France under a bill approved overwhelmingly on Tuesday by the lower house of parliament. Offenders would be fined 150 euros ($189) or required to take part in a citizenship class. The bill, which critics say stigmatizes immigrants, bans people “from wearing, in a public place, garments designed to cover the face.”

(Photo: Veil ban debate in the National Assembly in Paris, July 13, 2010/Benoit Tessier)

Forcing someone to cover their face would be punishable by a one-year prison sentence and a 30,000 euro fine. The law does not apply if the face is covered for carnivals or artistic events.

In the vote, 335 members of parliament approved the ban, with just one against. Opposition socialist and Green lawmakers abstained. The legislation still has to be vetted by the Constitutional Council, France’s highest constitutional authority, and approved by the Senate.

Justice Minister Michele Alliot-Marie said the approval was a success for French republican values of liberty, equality, fraternity and secularism. However, the Council of State, France’s top legal advisory body, has already queried whether a ban is compatible with the constitution and the European Convention on Human Rights. The Council of Europe has also said it is opposed to bans on veils, and that they deny women a basic right.

“These mixed feelings about how to respond to the full veil are symptomatic of a not-fully-explicable uneasiness with Islam and the growing religious plurality of Europe. Behind this is probably an inability to deal with bigger issues such as the consequences of globalisation, migration, the financial crisis, and a crisis of national identities. Places in which the veil was not an issue until recently have now been drawn into the debate … The “non-issue” of the veil has been imported and become one that polarises people.”